


and how i wouldn’t care

by TrainRush



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [16]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Broken Bones, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mild Blood, Missing Scene, aka conductor is an absolute asshole to grooves asmr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29483553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrainRush/pseuds/TrainRush
Summary: DAY 16: broken bonesHe narrowed his eyes at DJ Grooves’s unconscious body in front of him. What a bastard.—(or, alternatively, the Conductor patches up DJ Grooves’s injuries after the battle with Hat Kid.)
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105115
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	and how i wouldn’t care

**Author's Note:**

> quick shoutout to @tiredkotasu, who i played with in ahit online party last night :) seeing someone who i know reads my fics in online party with me made my entire night!! i had a lot of fun with u and i hope we can meet again :)

The Conductor hissed, foot tapping the ground impatiently as he waited on his owls to bring him medical supplies.

This whole situation was awful. Completely and utterly awful. What on earth had Grooves been _thinking?_ He had gone completely mental, attacking Hat Kid and attempting to kill her. He’d even used one of the Conductor’s own bombs. One of his good ones, too; he had been saving it for something special, but now it was completely useless, laying discarded in a far corner of the room. The Conductor lamented it, but of course, his bomb getting ruined wasn’t the worst thing that had transpired that night.

The poor lass. She must have been absolutely traumatized after all of that. She had looked up to Grooves; the Conductor could tell, even though he hated to admit it. The kid loved him. And he’d completely turned on her and tried to _kill_ her. One thing was for sure: she was definitely going to have some trust issues after this. Which hurt the Conductor to think about. She didn’t deserve that.

He narrowed his eyes at DJ Grooves’s unconscious body in front of him. What a bastard.

Still, though, no other birds wanted to stay behind to take care of him. No moon penguins wanted to be associated with him after such a crushing defeat; no owls wanted to get too close, out of fear that they could get hurt. The Conductor was the only one left. He didn’t mind it as much as he’d thought he would; it meant he could get some alone time with Grooves. He could speak his mind in private.

The elevator doors on the other end of the room opened, and a couple owls emerged, each carrying first aid kits and other medical supplies. The Conductor quietly thanked them before ordering them to go away, making it very clear to the owls that he wanted to be alone with Grooves. The small group seemed to understand what he meant by that well enough, and they left quickly.

The Conductor turned back to Grooves, the latter’s unconscious body propped up against the wall. He frowned. The lass had certainly done a number on him, that was for sure. Freshly forming bruises and scratches covered him from head to toe. His signature star shades were cracked. While most of his injuries were blunt, some broke his skin, blood dripping from them. All things considered, Grooves looked like an absolute mess. 

_Well,_ the Conductor thought to himself, _better to start somewhere than nowhere at all._

Carefully, the Conductor took Grooves’s coat off of his shoulders, opened up a nearby first aid kit, and slowly began to work on patching up one of his arms.

—

DJ Grooves somehow woke up both simultaneously later and earlier than the Conductor had expected.

He had, by that point, moved on to patting down the latter’s cuts with a damp washcloth, attempting to clean the wounds. Around halfway through, when the Conductor had put the cloth on a rather deep slice, he heard a quiet hiss of pain from Grooves. It hurt his heart a little. Only a little. 

Almost immediately after hearing the sound, a bolt of rage hit the Conductor. He huffed and, doing his best to restrain his own anger, continued to patch up Grooves’s injuries. Now, though, his movements were a lot harsher and less cautious. Reminded of why the two were there in the first place, he no longer cared about injuring DJ Grooves further, because why _should_ he? The peck neck did this to himself. If the Conductor made things worse for him by patching up his injuries, then so be it.

Grooves began to mumble something, but the Conductor couldn’t hear whatever he was saying. Whether that was because of him tuning the other out, or because the other’s words stringed together in an incomprehensible manner, he wasn’t sure. Eventually, though, the Conductor recognized a single word in the other’s muttering:

“...Bright…”

“Bright?” the Conductor said, raising his head to look at the other. He had taken Grooves’s glasses off of his face earlier so he could take care of a bruise on his cheek, and now Grooves’s eyes were shut tight. The Conductor frowned in understanding and reached for his glasses… until he stopped. He turned back to tending the injury on his side. “Suck it up. You’ll survive.”

Grooves shifted a little in an obvious attempt to look at the Conductor. “Cond..?”

The Conductor didn’t take his gaze away from what he was doing. “Yes, it’s me.”

For a moment, Grooves sat in dumbfounded silence. The Conductor continued to work, eventually reaching for the first aid kit for another roll of bandages. He picked up one of Grooves’s wings and began examining its injuries, using the clean parts of the washcloth to wipe down his cuts.

“I’m no doctor, but I’ve tended to injuries during filming in the past.” He unraveled a small bit of the new roll of bandages and began to tie them around Grooves’s arm. “This isn’t too much different.”

DJ Grooves nodded a little, squinting at the Conductor as he worked.

The Conductor had begun to tighten the bandages when Grooves suddenly whimpered in pain.

“What,” the Conductor sneered, “did that hurt?” Grooves nodded, and, out of spite, he only tightened them even more.

Immediately as he did, though, Grooves cried out sharply in pain. The Conductor froze, feeling his heart drop into his stomach at the sound of the other. He had never heard Grooves cry like that before. Tightening bandages wasn’t supposed to hurt that much.

Anxiously, he looked up at Grooves. A couple tears were streaming down his face. The Conductor had hardly ever seen Grooves cry, either. He loosened the bandages to fit comfortably before examining Grooves’s arm a little closer. As he looked over it, he carefully felt the spot which he had bandaged. Before he could even examine anything further, he heard Grooves hiss again. The Conductor winced.

“Must be a fracture.”

“You think?” Grooves muttered breathlessly.

The Conductor bristled. “Don’t get snarky with me. You did this to yourself.”

DJ Grooves went silent.

Setting down Grooves’s arm by his side, the Conductor continued on, looking for any injuries that he may have missed. 

“So,” opening one of the first aid kits to search for painkillers, the Conductor began, “care to explain yourself?”

Again, DJ Grooves was completely silent. He frowned, looking up at the man. His eyes had apparently mostly adjusted, and he only barely squinted as he looked down at his injuries.

The Conductor reached into the first aid kit and brought out the painkillers. Hearing the bottle clatter, Grooves looked up, squinting at them.

“What are…?”

“So now you speak?” the Conductor hissed. “They’re painkillers.”

“Oh.” He visibly relaxed.

The Conductor paused. He looked down at the bottle in his hands, and then up to Grooves. Then, he glanced at the bottle again.

“You want them, right?” DJ Grooves nodded. “Then speak. Explain yourself.”

Grooves’s brows furrowed. “That’s low. Even for you, Conductor.”

The Conductor was taken aback, but stood his ground anyway.

“You want me to explain myself? Fine then. I’m not sure you’ll like what I have to say, though.”

“Just get to it.”

Grooves frowned, looking away. “I… had no control over my own actions.”

The Conductor was infuriated now. “No control?! No control _my ass!”_

“I said you wouldn’t like it, didn’t I?” Grooves’s eyes narrowed. “Do you honestly think that I would willingly murder a _child?_ A child who looked up to me? Who admired me? Who brought me an award I haven’t won in years? Do you honestly think I’m that awful?”

“Yes,” the Conductor hissed. “Because that’s what you did.”

DJ Grooves quickly became frustrated. “You don’t understand, Conductor; that Time Piece — that _thing_ — it…”

“I don’t want to hear your petty excuses.” The Conductor towered over Grooves. “I want an explanation.”

“I’m trying to give you my explanation, but you won’t listen!”

“That’s because claiming you weren’t in control or whatever isn’t a _pecking_ explanation!”

“Then what do you want to hear from me?”

“Just confess!” The Conductor was yelling at this point. “Admit that you tried to murder a child for some awards because you’re _greedy.”_

“Greedy?” DJ Grooves was on the verge of tears. “If you were in my place, Conductor—“

“I would _NEVER_ have been in your place-!”

“—you would understand how after that Time Piece convinced me to break it—“

“Oh, so they can _talk_ now?” The Conductor tapped his foot on the ground.

“—I couldn't go back!”

Tears flowed freely down DJ Grooves’s face now. Struck by pain, he attempted to stifle his tears, but to no avail.

The Conductor simply stared.

“You don’t understand…”

The Conductor looked at the bottle of pills in his hand, and then he looked down at the other bottles on the ground. Carefully, he switched them.

“Why can’t you understand?”

“Give me your hand.”

DJ Grooves looked up, taking his head from his hands. “What?”

The Conductor opened the bottle of tablets in his hand and popped one out. He held it out to Grooves, who took it eagerly. He turned to offer him water, but the latter swallowed the medicine dry as soon as it was handed to him.

Stepping away from DJ Grooves for a moment, the Conductor pulled out a small speaker and held up a small headphone to one ear. “I need at least two Moon Penguins and a stretcher or wheelchair down to the lowest level.”

An owl on the other end spoke up. “The… the Moon Penguins are hesitant to—“

“Oh, don’t worry,” the Conductor said. He smirked, side-glancing Grooves. “He’ll be asleep by the time you get here.”

Grooves’s eyes widened. “You—“

The Conductor spoke into the speaker again. “I’ll give you some painkillers to leave with him for when he wakes up. He’ll need them; those injuries are pretty bad.”

The owl spoke again. “...Okay. Thank you.”

The Conductor lowered the speaker and put it back into his pocket. As he did, he also set the bottle of sleeping pills back on the ground.

“Sorry… Well, not really. I don’t want to listen to your excuses anymore.”

“I—”

“Hey, you should really be saving your energy. You’ll need it to recover.”

DJ Grooves opened his mouth to say something, but shut it, exhaustion taking the place of his frustration.

“Sweet dreams.”


End file.
